Say DoD Should Not Provide "Independent" and "Flawed" Intel Assesments

02/12/2007 1:46 PM ET

House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, Ike Skelton, chairman of House Armed Services, and Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the intel committee, have forwarded a sharply-worded request to SecDef Robert Gates and DNI John Negroponte regarding the alternative intelligence apparatus established by Douglas Feith when he was the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

Sen. Carl Levin released the DoD Inspector General report last Friday, which concluded that Feith's late 2002 report asserting there to be a "mature, symbiotic relationship" between al Qaeda and Saddam was based on "reporting of dubious quality or reliability."

Now Hoyer, Skelton, and Reyes are requesting the Pentagon avoid the practice of providing alternative intelligence assessments supporting Bush Administration policy goals. As they write:

"We firmly believe that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy should not be in the business of conducting its own intelligence assessments. The office should be focusing its attention on providing sound policy advice to the Secretary of Defense, not providing independent, and flawed, intelligence assessments. Responsibility for intelligence assessments should be left to the professionals--the brave and patriotic men and women of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Therefore, we would like to know what procedures your respective offices have put in place to eliminate the possibility of any future occurrences of similar incidents."